


Still fixing all the cracks

by EmmaArthur (EchoBleu)



Series: Found Family Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Kindness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt, discussion of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22441672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoBleu/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: “You don't have to do that, Alex,” Arturo says loudly, coming from behind him. He gives Alex a strong pat on the shoulder before he enters his field of vision, and Alex full-body flinches.With a glass in his hand.In the fraction of a second it takes for the glass to reach the floor, dozens of thoughts have time to go through Alex's head. Each scenario worse than the previous one. It's going to crash and break and there's nothing to be done about it, Alex can see it in slow motion. Arturo's hand is still on his shoulder, and Alex can almost feel it tightening already, the friendly grip turning into a vise, the man's gentle face distorting in anger.The glass hits the floor, shatters with a deafening noise, but somehow it doesn't happen.
Relationships: Alex Manes & Arturo Ortecho, Alex Manes & Liz Ortecho, Alex Manes & Rosa Ortecho
Series: Found Family Prompt Fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598179
Comments: 12
Kudos: 62





	Still fixing all the cracks

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second fill for a prompt given to me on Tumblr by manesalex from [this post](https://emma-arthur.tumblr.com/post/189610588422/my-favorite-trope-is-characters-who-dont-know) : _-breaking a glass on accident and panicking, expecting terrible, terrible things, but a caretaker just bumbles over with a broom, pulling on a pair of slippers and telling them not to move, not to step on anything._
> 
> The other fill (Birthday Hug) was fairly sweet, but this one, that I originally intended to write for Molly's birthday, got long and angsty, so I put it aside and wrote something else for her. 
> 
> This is set when Alex and the other are around fourteen. Please heed the warnings.
> 
> [panic attack, PTSD, explicit discussion of abuse and violence, internalized homophobia, self-injurious actions, mentions of canon death and resurrection]

Alex stands up from the booth, leaving Liz and Rosa crying through a fit of laughter at some silly inside joke he didn't get. He feels a slight heartache at the thought of his own brothers, with whom he hasn't laughed in years−if ever. They're all overseas now, and Alex can't help but wait for the day there will be a phone call, or worse, a man in uniform at their door.

N one of the Ortechos are working today, and they were kind enough to invite him, so Alex figures the least he can do is give them a break  and do the dishes . He starts picking up their empty milkshake glasses, still watching the sisters.

“You don't have to do that, Alex,” Arturo says loudly, coming from behind him. He gives Alex a strong pat on the shoulder before he enters his field of vision, and Alex full-body flinches.

With a glass in his hand.

In the fraction of a second it takes for the glass to reach the floor, dozens of thoughts have time to go through Alex's head. Each scenario worse than the previous one. It's going to crash and break and there's nothing to be done about it, Alex can see it in slow motion.  Arturo's hand is still on his shoulder, and Alex can almost feel it tightening already, the friendly grip turning into a vise,  the man's gentle face distorting in anger . 

T he glass hits the floor, shatters with a deafening noise, but somehow it doesn't happen. Arturo removes his hand in surprise.

“Sorry!” Alex shouts immediately, taking a step back, away from both Arturo and the girls. “I'm sorry!”

“Alex, it's okay, just don't move,” Arturo says. “Don't step into the−”

But Alex is already on his knees, desperately trying to gather the shattered glass with his bare hands. It's everywhere, mixed with leftover sticky milky substance. He's have gone to get a broom, but he doesn't know where it's stored,  and there's no time to ask Liz discreetly. The screams will start anytime now.

“Alex!”

Alex is too focused, too terrified, to register that the cries are worried rather than angry. He feels the glass cut at his hands, and he can't grab the smaller pieces, but he has the main ones at least. He looks around, still at ground level, but he doesn't see anything he can put them in to get them into the bin, so he starts to scoop them up.

“Alex!” Arturo calls again, echoed by his daughters. Suddenly there's something obscuring his vision and someone shaking his shoulders. Not the heavy hand of a grown man, but Alex still recoils. “Alex!” Rosa. She purposefully crowds his face, her long hair brushing his nose. “Stop!”

“I need to put it into the bin,” Alex mutters. “Please, Rosa.”

“Alex, mijo, calm down,” Arturo says from above. “What are you afraid of?”

Alex shakes his head. “Please.”

“Let me get a broom, okay?” Liz says. “I'll be back in a sec.”

Alex stays frozen, his heart in his throat. Rosa isn't letting him move. He sees the glint of one more shard by her foot, and weakly reaches for it. “Alex, stop,” Rosa repeats in his ear. “You're hurting yourself. What's wrong?”

“Just−just−” Alex whimpers. Then he straightens his back, realizing how this must look. He breaks out of Rosa's grip and stands up, automatically at attention. “I'm sorry, sir,” he enunciates clearly, despite how much his eyes are burning. “I'll clean it up right away, sir. I'll buy you a new glass.”

“Alex−”

Alex almost jumps at hearing his first name. The Master Sergeant only calls him  _boy_ or  _Manes_ when he's angry. But it's Arturo calling him now, looking disconcerted. “Sir?”

“Alex, it's okay. Your father's not here,” Liz says, coming back from the kitchen. Arturo frowns, then his eyes widen in understanding and shock. Liz comes closer to Alex in increments, carefully. “I've got the broom, see? It's okay.”

Alex hesitates, wanting to grab the broom and get to work, but he hasn't been told to stand down. Only the Ortechos aren't military, right? They might not know to tell him.

Rosa grabs the broom instead, and it breaks him out of his frozen state. He extends a hand, fully expecting her to let him clean the mess, but she waves him out of the way instead and starts sweeping herself.

“It's fine, Alex, I'll do it,” she says. “Your hands−”

Alex looks down at his hands, covered in blood from the dozens of little cuts he inflicted on himself. The blood has started dropping on the floor already, and stained his cuffs.  His throat makes a little whimper and, like a dam has been broken, tears start flooding from his eyes, the pain finally catching up with him.  He turns away from the Ortechos in shame.

“Alex, come with me,” Liz says, laying a gentle hand on his arm.

Alex follows her on autopilot  into the bathroom. He lets her put his hands under the running water, staining the sink in red. The bleeding doesn't stop though, and it become apparent that there are still bits of glass in his palm s .

“Dad!” Liz calls.

“No,” Alex whimpers.

“Don't worry, he won't hurt you,” Liz murmurs.

Alex keeps shaking his head, stepping back until he's backed himself into the wall, his hand held up in front of him to avoid putting blood everywhere.

“Okay, okay, he's not coming in here. Dad, can you bring me the first-aid kit? Alex, I don't think the cuts are deep enough to need stitches, but we need to remove the glass, and it would be better to go to the hospital.”

Alex hears the word and dimly i magines his father's face if he has to pick his soon up in the emergency room. “No,” he says, more steady this time. “ No hospital.”

“Alex−”

“No. I can't, Liz. My dad will kill me.”

Liz sighs. “Okay. But  the shard s need to be removed, and my dad will be better at it than me.”

“Rosa?” Alex winces, feeling his face heat up in shame. He doesn't think he can face Arturo right now.

Liz turns to look behind her, and Alex realizes Rosa is there too.

“I can try, Alex,” she says. “My hands are pretty steady. But it's gonna sting.”

Alex nods. His breathing is still shallow and painful, like the shards of glass are in his lungs and not in his hands. His hands, still held in front of him awkwardly, are shaking. “You need to calm down first,” Liz decides.

“I'm fine,” Alex mutters.

“No one's going to hurt you, okay? People break glasses all the time here. You don't need to worry.”

“But−”

“I promise, Alex, it's fine. I know it's not the same at home, but you did nothing wrong, and you're not going to be punished or anything.”

“Okay,” Alex nods shakily. It doesn't sound possible, but maybe Arturo will let his father be the one who punishes him instead. That would mean a respite, at least. Long enough for Alex to steel himself and get rid of this stupid panic. And his father doing it would be better, because Alex at least knows what to expect.

The thought that he's disappointed Arturo, who is always so kind to him, makes him want to cry again.

“Let's go somewhere with better light, okay?” Liz gently pulls at his sleeve. “Like the kitchen.”

Alex follows her, only freezing for a moment when they find Arturo outside. He dips his head in shame. Rosa says something to her father in Spanish and he doesn't bother trying to understand, giving Arturo a wide berth instead.

He's relieved when Arturo doesn't come to the kitchen with them. Liz sits him down in front of a work station, and Rosa brings over a first-aid kit, taking it apart to find gauze and disinfectant. She grabs tweezers and quickly sterilizes them while Liz tries to stem the blood flow from Alex's hands.

They look much better once cleaned, there are only a few cuts on each palm, all shallow. Alex watches in fascination while Rosa takes out four separates shards of glass from his skin, and swallows back the nausea as she pokes carefully at the other cuts to make sure there aren't any left.

Liz and Rosa work quickly together, applying butterfly bandages to the longest cuts and covering up his hands with gauze. They must be used to cutting themselves cooking, Alex realizes. After all, they've been han g ing around the diner since they were little, even though Arturo was careful not to let them work for clients until they reached legal age −Liz only started this summer.

He's already thinking about how to discreetly remove any visible bandages before his father sees them, so he misses Rosa letting Arturo in.

“I knew his home life wasn't great, but I didn't know it was this bad,” he hears Arturo murmur to the girls in Spanish. Alex's Spanish is good enough to get the gist of it, even through his sudden tension.

“He only tells me bits and pieces,” Liz says. 

“No one else knows? I wish we could take it to the police.”

“You know we can't, Dad,” Rosa replies.

“Alex wouldn't testify or anything anyway,” Liz adds.

Alex  drowns them out once he's sure they won't call the police or something equally embarrassing and tries to focus on keeping his breathing even, keeping his back to them. He's not ready to face Arturo yet.

He replays what happened in his head, and he sees it now, how ridiculous his panic must have been. He still expects some kind of punishment for breaking the glass, at the very least having to repay it, but Arturo isn't his father. And even if he was...what was Alex thinking? He did everything his father can't stand, he panicked and cried and made a mess. He knows how to behave himself better than that, even faced with his father's fury. What on Earth just happened to him?

He looks down at his bandaged hands and remembers Arturo's stricken face, Liz and Rosa's concern, their general gentleness. He responded to that by acting like he's afraid of them.  What is wrong with him?

Swallowing hard, he stands up to face them. “Sir?” he rasps out, his voice weaker than he'd like.

“Hijo?” Arturo takes a step toward him immediately. _Son_ , Alex translates, suppressing his flinch. He doesn't deserve to be called “son” by anyone. His father makes that clear on a daily basis. He straightens his spine.

“I want to apologize, sir. You invited me into your house and I acted like a child and made a mess. Please let me just clean it up and I'll be on my way.”

“On your way?” Arturo frowns. “Why?”

“My father need to be told so he can punish me appropriately?” Alex says, involuntarily letting it end like a question. He's confused that Arturo doesn't want him out of here as fast as possible.

“No, no, Alex, you did nothing wrong,” Arturo says, looking horrified. “There is no need for you to be punished, it was an accident.”

“But−”

“Alex, I told you, it's all good,” Liz says, pulling at his arm again to force him out of his military stance. “Please. We can go up to the apartment, maybe watch a movie.”

“A movie?” Alex frowns.

“Yeah, you know, I promised to show you the original Star Wars movies. You told me you've never seen them.”

Alex nods slowly, still confused. He looks back at Arturo. “Go, hijo. Rosa, too. I'll finish cleaning here.”

Liz pushes Alex firmly in front of her before he can protest. Alex decides to accept the truce for what it is, a respite. Maybe Arturo really is a man who doesn't punish his daughter s , and he's trying to extend Alex the same courtesy, not knowing that Alex needs to be punished. Mimi never punishes him either, when she t akes Alex to the drive-in with the girls, but he figure s that's because she's a m other, not a father . Mom didn't punish him either, when she was still there. 

But that was before. Before Alex grew up and became twisted. Before he looked at Kyle the wrong way  and Dad found out.

A rturo and Mimi don't know about that. Alex hasn't told anyone yet. He hasn't found it in himself to tell his two best friends that he's a freak,  even though he can barely think about anything but the way he's betraying them.

Maybe it's time to tell Liz, he thinks as she leads him to the couch up in the Ortechos' apartment.

It takes him the  length of the movie−which he's sure he would have loved, if he wasn't so nervous−to build up the courage.  He presses his palms together, focusing on the pain to keep the fear at bay. This could be the last time he talks to his best friend, if this doesn't go well. But he can't keep it in anymore. Besides, Liz deserves to know who she's associating with.

“I have something to tell you,” he tells Liz when she stands up to get the DVD out of the player.

“Okay, what is it?”

Alex hesitates.

“Do you want me to leave?” Rosa asks from the other end of the couch. Liz has spent the movie squished between them, and Alex couldn't help think about how easily physical she is with him, even when he can see how she's started to look at Kyle, and other boys in their class.

“No,” he mutters. Rosa is not as close to him as Liz and Maria, she has her own friends, but Alex likes her, and he figures that Liz will probably tell her right away, anyway. They share pretty much everything. “I...” He takes a deep breath. “I don't like girls.”

There's a silence.

“Like...you don't like us, or...” Liz frowns.

“No, you're my friends, I mean−”

“You mean you're gay,” Rosa understands first. Liz opens her mouth in surprise, but Alex nods quickly, looking down at his hands again.

“Okay,” Liz says after a bit. “So you like...boys? One boy in particular?”

Alex shakes his head. He's put any notion of going somewhere with Kyle to rest a while ago. “Just boys.”

“Good. Then we can talk about boys together.”

Rosa lets out a little laugh. Alex looks at them uncomprehendingly. “It doesn't bother you?”

Liz shakes her head. “It's a surprise, but−”

“It's not a surprise,” Rosa says flatly.

“No, you're right, it's not a surprise. Maria and Rosa have been wondering for a while.”

“Really?” Alex's eyes widen.

“Yeah, something changed,” Rosa says. “You've been more moody, and you won't even go within ten feet from any of the boys in your class. It wasn't really hard to figure out.”

“Wait, is that the reason Kyle and you stopped hanging out?” Liz asks.

Alex shrugs. “Yeah. He thought I was hitting on him and...he wasn't happy.”

Disturbed would be the right word. Even his father's disgust for him is easier to handle than the face Kyle made that day. Alex blinks to get rid of the image.

“That's shitty of him,” Liz decides.

“I...I kinda was, though,” Alex admits. “Hitting on him.”

“Still shitty.”

“I don't know. It's not...normal. I'm not−”

“Of course you are, Alex,” Rosa is the one who reacts this time.

A lex bites his lip. “My father doesn't think so.”

Liz brings a hand to her mouth. “Is that why he started hitting you?”

Alex nods wordlessly.

“Wasn't he always−” Rosa waves vaguely.

“It wasn't as bad before,” Alex explains. “He didn't...use his belt. Or, you know, his hands.”

Liz squeezes his arm.  “ What your Dad does, it's not fair, Alex. It's not okay.”

Alex  swallows . “I know. I mean, obviously parents aren't supposed to hurt their children enough to land them in the hospital, but…  J ust because he's heavy-handed, doesn't mean he isn't right.”

“Do you really think he's right to punish you because of something you can't help?”

Alex doesn't answer, a little lost. It all seems so obvious, at home. His fear of his father, but also t he righteousness  of it . Jesse Manes is just trying to raise his sons the best he can on his own, just like Jim always says. It's not easy, and Alex is harder to keep in the right path than his brothers, that's all. So maybe Dad has gone too far a few times, but Alex's brothers turned out alright, didn't they?

“Alex, look at me.”

Alex looks up to find Rosa kneeling in front of him on the floor.

“Do you think I deserve to be beaten?” Rosa asks.

“Of course not,” Alex frowns. “But it's different.”

“Is it? I look at girls, too.”

Lost, Alex looks up at Liz, who shakes her head. It's news to her too.

“You've had boyfriends before,” he says.

Rosa shrugs. “So I like both. Does that mean I should be abused?”

Alex isn't sure if the revelation should feel like something big, maybe because Rosa is so casual about it or because it seems to fit her perfectly, for some reason. His own double standards for himself don't even come to his mind, but her choice of words sticks.

“I'm not abused,” he defends himself, too fast even to his own ears.

“Alex−”

“No, it's not abuse. He's just...rough. That's all.”

“He's put you in the hospital three times in the last year, Alex,” Liz points out.

_ Three times? _ he sees Rosa mouth at his sister. Liz nods sadly. Alex shakes his head. “I shouldn't have fought back. He wouldn't have hurt me if I hadn't fought back.”

“Alex, are you even listening to yourself right now?” Liz asks.

Alex shakes his head in denial, too hard, too brittle. “It's my fault. I deserve it.”

“Oh, Alex,” Liz murmurs, tears welling up in her eyes.

She reaches out to hug him, and Alex suddenly realizes how scared he was that she would refuse to touch him ever again, the way Kyle did. Because he's so disgusting. He lets her pull him into her chest and feels tears running down his own cheeks.

He shouldn't be crying. That's yet another thing his father hates.

And yet...he can't help being gay, can he? He's done his research. It's hard to navigate the web, the pages that assure him it's fine and perfectly normal and gays should be allowed to marry and the ones that say the opposite, the websites that are too bright and proud and shiny and don't look anything like Alex and the dark corners  that look too much like sin and  _wrong_ , but he's figured that out, at least. It's not a choice. It's not something his father can beat out of him.

So if he can't please his father whatever he does, if he can't  _change_ to be a good son, he might as well stop trying, right? 

“Rosa?” he says through his tears, pulling his face off Liz's shoulder.

“What is it, papito?” Rosa has a hand on his back and a wet smile on her face.

“I want to...” Alex hesitates, staring at her Doc Martens boots and bright red shirt with a skull on it. He looks down at his own outfit, khakis and a gray sweater. “I want to look more like you. I want to look more like me.”

Rosa's eyes widen in surprise, but she nods. She extends her hand. “Come on, then. We can try some things out.”

He'll finish the day  bloody and broken again, but t he smile on Liz's face, Arturo's pleased surprise, and more than anything the pride in Rosa's eyes when Alex comes out of her bedroom an hour later, wearing one of her band tees, a c lip-on earring and eyeliner, is something that Alex will never forget. It's the first thing he thinks of when he pulls up in the middle of the desert following Liz's panicked phone call, n early fifteen years later, and covers a just-resurrected Rosa with his leather jacket.

“You've grown into yourself, papito,” she tells him later, when they've brought her up to speed.

T he man he is today isn't the person Alex glimpsed in his reflection that day, not exactly. He still isn't free of his father, and he's got ten years of pain and hardships to show for it. But Rosa's pride is unchanged,  and he loves her for it.

“I've missed you,” he answers in a whisper.

He really has.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments make my day :) I'm also on Tumblr at [emma-arthur](https://emma-arthur.tumblr.com/).


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